Our Story

"The community, in every way, created the company."

Tailor-Made Solution

Tessitura Network was born out of Metropolitan Opera’s frustration with its siloed ticketing and fundraising systems and a lack of better options on the horizon. In 1995 The Met’s board of trustees in New York City authorized $5 million to build an integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, tailor-made for an arts and cultural organization. Chuck Reif, now Tessitura Network’s Senior Vice President of Technology, was appointed project manager for the development of “Impresario” (later changed to Tessitura), which became operational during the 1998-99 season.

One Unified System

Chuck Reif and his team developed a unified enterprise system that cut across all the functions of an arts and cultural organization to enable connections with prospects, donors, members, single-ticket buyers, subscribers and more. Tessitura was a solution equally strong for ticketing, fundraising, marketing, customer relationship management, data mining and web capabilities.

2001

Tessitura Network founded

1

unified enterprise system

7

founding organizations

Seven Pioneering Organizations

Another six forward-thinking organizations saw that this system could fulfill their need for unified CRM capabilities. They met in 2001 in Santa Fe — a gathering we now call our first “conference.” Santa Fe Opera, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Opera, New York City Center and Lyric Opera of Chicago joined forces with The Met. Leaders from the seven organizations shook hands, pledging to share costs and form a non-profit company to be led by Jack Rubin, now the CEO of Tessitura Network.

Metropolitan Opera

New York

Santa Fe Opera

Santa Fe

John F Kennedy Center

Washington DC

San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco

Seattle Opera

Seattle

New York City Center

New York

Lyric Opera of Chicago

Chicago

Unique Business Model

In 2001, an important decision was made. Tessitura Network would be set up as a coop­erative model, owned by the users of Tessitura Software. A non-profit and member-owned business model would benefit users – rather than investors, shareholders or venture capitalists. We were granted not-for-profit 501(c)3 charitable organization status by the IRS in 2003. We are proud to be owned and governed by our users.

"Our original goal was just to hammer out a way for a few arts organizations to share the software and find a way to support it. We never imagined growing like this and it’s been an amazing experience to see where we’ve come."

Chuck Reif, Senior Vice President of Technology
Tessitura Network

Passionate Global Team

Back then it was Jack and Chuck. Now our global team has grown exponentially to 200+ talented people. An incredible 80% of our passionate, dedicated staff have worked in arts and cultural organizations – as ticketing & box office managers, development directors, marketing managers, IT specialists, digital content producers, museum curators, gallery managers, finance directors, education coordinators and more. Our innovative distributed workforce model frees us up to hire the best people in the arts and cultural industry. Our team’s catchphrase is “live in the culture” and we really do: in and outside of our jobs, behind the scenes, in front of the house and on the stage.

Powerful Arts & Cultural Community

In every way, the arts and cultural community created Tessitura Network. We’re proud that our seven founding organizations are still with us today and that our community influences and guides everything we do. The Tessitura Learning and Community Conference, Tessitura European Conference, Australia and New Zealand Tessitura Users Conference, regional Tessitura Users Group gatherings, Tessitura Center for Professional Development, Tessitura’s Innovator Series and our dynamic online user forums and facilitate sharing of knowledge, best practices and thought leadership amongst the global arts and cultural community.

630+

leading arts & cultural organizations

200+

passionate team members

100%

focus on our mission to enable arts and cultural organizations to achieve success

Our History

2018: Tessitura Analytics

Tessitura Analytics is released as part of Tessitura Version 15. The innovative and comprehensive analytics platform enables data exploration in an intuitive and fluid user interface.

2018: TN Express Web v7

Tessitura’s ecommerce platform, TN Express Web, releases first phase of its milestone release, Version 7, the largest release in its 9-year history. V7 introduces TNEW as a fully mobile-ready application & with much deeper design & branding capability.

2017: Tessitura v14

Release of Tessitura v.14 includes Resource Scheduling, an exciting browser-based capability that enables venues to schedule people, places and things.

2017: TCPD

Tessitura Center for Professional Development is launched. The newest Learning Resources program offers comprehensive courses in development, ticketing, and system administration to enable Tessitura users to become power users and organizations to get the best out of Tessitura.

2015: Tessitura Roving Box Office™

2015: 500 users of Tessitura

500 arts and cultural organizations now using Tessitura as their unified platform.

2015: First Tessitura users in Sweden

Malmö Live Konserthus, Skånes Dansteater, Malmö Stadtsteater and Malmö Opera & Musikteater form consortium and become the first Tessitura users and community members in Sweden. Tessitura Software is now being used in seven countries that span three continents.

2014: Tessitura v.12/12.5

The biggest functional release in Tessitura Network's history introduce new capabilities across all business functions, from moves management to ease of pricing to graphical screens and more.

2014: First Tessitura user in Denmark

Royal Danish Theatre becomes first Tessitura user and community member in Denmark.

2013: Tessitura On the Go™

Tessitura On The Go™ is launched, enabling business-facing access to reports, data and activity from phones and tablets.

2013: Tessitura's Innovator Series

Launch of Tessitura’s Innovator Series, an ongoing program of inspiring talks by industry innovators to advance business insights in arts & culture, delivered by webinar and video.

2002: Tessitura on the Web

Houston Ballet and Lyric Opera of Chicago are the first organizations to go live with Tessitura on the Web, integrating their websites with their customer data in Tessitura.

2002: First Tessitura user in Canada

Stratford Festival becomes the first Tessitura user and community member in Canada.

2001: Tessitura Network born

Tessitura Network, Inc. is incorporated for Support, Consulting and Development.

2001: First user conference

35 users representing the six early adopters of the system meet in Santa Fe, New Mexico to brainstorm how a unique business can be formed that could operate and support the Tessitura system.

2001: Six more adopters

More organizations recognize the value of an integrated system and six additional early adopters license and go live - Santa Fe Opera, John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Opera, New York City Center and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

1999: Impresario at The Met Opera

New integrated system ("Impresario") implemented at Metropolitan Opera.

1995: New system for The Met Opera

Metropolitan Opera's Board of Trustees authorizes building of a new integrated system in conjunction with a major customer service initiative.

Discover

Be inspired by success stories from arts and culture thought leaders around the globe.